ebv

History

Recent Comments

Davis really did make an argument for more playing time. Hopefully it wasn't a result of the competition level as it was nice to see.

The game also clarified Altidore's role I think. As Brian said, he didn't have many one-on-one scoring opportunities, but he did a good job of boxing defenders out and fighting for possession.

There was a nice sequence in the second half where Altidore controlled a long pass, kept the defender away from the ball with his body, made a quick little pass to Bradley who tried to thread another quick pass to a wide open Davis which was just narrowly deflected.

I have a feeling that more than one goal in this World Cup will follow that model: Altidore fights for possession deep allowing the rest of the team to come up, quick pass to Dempsey, quick pass to Bradley, etc, as opposed to a lone player streaking down the field beating defenders.

Gardner seems to be reading the MLB ... Does he keep because that LB takes off for the playside? But that doesn't seem right, because the pulling guard ends up on the MLB. Is this supposed to be a handoff but Gardener pulls because the FB botches the block?

I very much like this theory, and giving the coaches some credit in general. Regarding important games, I would throw in ND, which would seem to be a datapoint in Borges's favor.

Now, for the tackle-over stuff, I think it makes a lot of sense to deploy it for the two-game Minny/Penn St. stretch. Its a totally sensible gameplan against Penn St. in particular who are thin at the linebacker position. However, it would very much be a datapoint against the coaching if we continued to see it this year.

I think another factor behind running non-optimal plays partway through the season is that we want to hide plays from Michigan St. and Ohio. Make them prep for weird stuff, and then throw something completely new that they haven't seen. There are only so many times we can reinvent the offense during the season, and it makes sense to try to have some stuff off-film going into those games.

For example, it would make a lot of sense to me see this team turn into a short passing team that utilizes the strengths of Gallon, Dileo and Norfleet in those games. But if that (or some other direction) is coming in the future, we don't want it on film yet, so it should stay in the barn against inferior opposition. Furthermore, if that is the plan, then you don't want to be throwing lots of bubbles, because you don't want to see press coverage on every play.

There's another option, which is to change up the playcalling. This line has been better at pass-protection than run protection. It seems to me that an emphasis on short passing routes might get some defenders out of the box and make the running game easier. The problems come when the opponent knows we're going to run and we run anyways.

Couldn't these teams also just be the ones for which your method is the least accurate - for whatever reason? You're essentially saying that teams that won more than you expected got "lucky", but what if your model is just plain wrong for some teams?

This is obviously better than the straight numbers, but the problem with this approach is that different teams schedules can have very different levels of difficulty. For example, if team A plays a very difficult schedule, they're not going to change those strong teams offensive output as much as team B, who plays nobody but cupcakes.

You can't draw conclusions from data with such low R2. The R2 is telling you that the percentage of the variation you're accounting for with this variable is 2-3%. So of all the wild outcomes that can occur on the basketball court, the 3pt attempts can explain less than 3% of the result.

Don't get mislead by the fact that the conclusions line up in a way that you can rationalize - this data isn't conclusive at all.

Its been fun to watch Ace's writing style improve so much over the last few months. The only problem now is that he sounds just like Brian. Given another year and he's going to be among the best sportswriters in the sports blogosphere.

Exactly. Reductio ad absurdum: QBs have higher PAN than offensive guards, so we should stop recruiting so many linemen. Clearly this is wrong.

There is a tradeoff between defending the run and defending the pass. Teams that sell out to stop one open themselves up to the other. I think its reasonable to say that one reason Russel Wilson's numbers look so good is precisely because Wisconsin's running game was so dominant.

The play-by-play breakdown adds depth that isn't available from summary statistics but I think everyone understands that this is a busy recriuting season, and you're looking for a break after football. Maybe you could focus on ufr-ing "interesting" games (like this one), probably games where something either went really well or horribly wrong, on either side of the ball.